The 2019 Pulitzer Prizes for Letters were awarded in the book categories of fiction, history, biography poetry, general nonfiction, and criticism on Monday afternoon at the Columbia University School of Journalism in Manhattan. The winners were announced by the Pulitzer administrator, Dana Canedy.
This year the Pulitzer for criticism was awarded to Washington Post nonfiction book critic Carlos Lozada.
The Pulitzer Prize in fiction was presented to The Overstory by Richard Powers (W.W. Norton), which was called "a sweeping and impassioned evocation of the natural world."
The prize in history was awarded to Frederick Douglass Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight (S&S), which was called "the definitive biography of the escaped slave that became the most important African American of the 19th Century."
The Pulitzer for biography was won by The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke by Jeffrey C. Stewart (OUP), which was called "a vivid and panoramic rendering of the life of the pioneering black academic dubbed the father of the Harlem Renaissance."
The Pulitzer for poetry has been awarded to Be With by Forrest Gander (New Directions), which was called "a selection of elegiac verse focused on loss, grief and yearning for those lost."
The winner of the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction is Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America by Eliza Griswold (FSG), which was called "a portrait of a middle class Appalachian family struggling to maintain its economic status in the looming, destructive shadow of corporate oil fracking."
A complete list of the winners and nominees can be found on the Pultizer Prize website.
This story has been updated for clarity.
